Day 4: Part 2

Hello Again!  NBC pissed me off today. I watched the coverage for most of the day, and they apparently decided that they would not show the Men's Gymnastics Team final when it was on, and would only show it during Primetime.  That, of course, means that as soon as it was actually over, people on Twitter and Facebook and articles on Yahoo! promptly informed me who won before I was able to watch a single minute of it.  What is the big deal NBC? I don't understand why you couldn't show it live for people who were watching the TV AT THE TIME IT WAS HAPPENING.  I understand that covering in Primetime was necessary, but there is no need to not show it during the day as well.  That really really annoyed me.  Ok, rant over.  Now I am actually going to watch it anyways, despite the fact that I know what happened.

Today's Medal Events:

Ok, first up, since I was already ranting about it....Gymnastics

Men's Team Final: Controversy abounds with this one.  The Gold medal winners, China, earned their spot legitimately.  The US men did terribly and did not even come close to winning a medal in this event.  The British men won the first men's gymnastic medal in modern history and initially they thought it was silver.  Here's how it happened.  The last Japanese athlete had his turn on the pommel horse and did well, until the dismount.  He seemed to fall off of the horse and never seemed to achieve the required handstand position for the dismount.  He was scored as if he had missed the dismount, which he clearly did, losing .700 of a point.  This was enough of a loss that it put Japan out of the medals, Britain with the Silver and Ukraine with the Bronze.  The Japanese filed a formal complaint, saying that he did complete the dismount albeit awkwardly, and they won the appeal.  This then gave Japan the Silver, the Brits the Bronze, and knocked Ukraine out.  It isn't so bad for the Brits, they were just happy to win a medal, but that seems incredibly bogus for the Ukraine athletes.  I disagree massively with the decision, but who am I to judge, I guess.

Men's Synchronized 10m Springboard:  The Chinese team is crazy good, because they probably are machines who have done nothing but dive since they came from the womb. The Mexican pair was also fantastic.  Tom Daley, who was 14 years-old at Bejing, competes again at London for Team GB. At the end of the competition, the Chinese pair Yanquan Zhang and Yuan Cao took the Gold medal, the Mexican pair German Sanchez Sanchez and Ivan Garcia Navarro took the Silver, and our own American pair Nicholas Mccrory and David Boudia broke the US diving drought and won the Bronze.

Women's Individual Epee:  Ok, so this was a pretty crappy result and situation.  To start with: Ukraine's Yana Shemyakina won the Gold, Britta Heidemann of Germany won the Silver, Yujie Sun won the Bronze medal over Korea's A Lam Shin.  In the Semi-Final match between Britta Heidemann and A Lam Shin, Shin was winning the bout and was about to win, and with 1 second left on the clock, it malfunctioned and stopped, and the German scored a hit during that time and 'won' the match.  The Korea Federation contested the result and the rules state that the athlete has to remain on the mat during the contestation.  So this poor woman had to sit on this mat, sobbing, for half an hour while they deliberated about this, and then she still lost and was relegated to the Bronze medal match.  She, not surprisingly, lost.  There should have been no argument here.  If there was a problem with the equipment, then the management should have arranged a new match or some other fairer way of determining the winner, not this lazy 'oh well, she won' crap.  I am kind of ashamed of you IOC.

Women's Lightweight: Kaori Matsumoto of Japan won Gold, Corina Caprioriu of Romania won the Silver, and Automne Pavia of France won the Bronze.

Men's Lightweight: Mansur Isaev of Russia won the Gold, Riki Nakaya of Japan won the Silver, and Ugo Legrand of France won the Bronze.

Men's 10m Air Rifle: Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania won the Gold, Niccolo Campriani of Italy won the Silver, and Gagan Narang of India won the Bronze.

Men's 200m Freestyle: Yannick Angel of France, the anchor of the Gold medal winning Men's 4x100 free relay team, won the Gold in this event, Yang Sun of China won the Silver, and Taehwan Park of Korea won the Bronze.

Women's 100m Breaststroke: 17 year-old Coloradan Missy Franklin won her first Gold in this event and was so over-whelmed and emotional after the race and during her medal ceremony....adorable! I wish her many more medals.  Australia's Emily Seebohm won the Silver and Japan's Aya Terakawa won the Bronze.




Men's 100m Backstroke: American men go 1-2 for the second time in this event with Matt Grevers winning the Gold and Nick Thoman winning the Silver.  Grever, according to Grace, is a beautiful Adonis of a man.  Too bad his adorable fiancee was in the stands cheering him on.  Japan's Ryosuke Irie took the Bronze.

Women's 100m Breaststroke: The buzzer went off early in this race and Breeja Larson of the US jumped in early.  After a bit of confusion, they restarted the race with no punishment, but it obviously threw her off since she only came 6th.  Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania won the Gold by 8 one-hundreths of a second over America's Rebecca Soni.  Satomi Suzuki of Japan won the Bronze.

Women's 53-58kg: Xueying Li of China won the Gold, Pimsiri Sirikaew of Thailand won the Silver, and Yuliya Kalina of Ukraine won the Bronze
In Other News:

Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor play their second round match vs the Slovakian pair.  Apparently, it seems like many of the other teams did not think that it was going to be cool, so didn't have any other uniforms made other than their bikinis because a lot of the teams seem to be wearing their bikini tops over short-sleeved sports tops.  The Americans appear to have thought ahead because they have shirts that have their names and country on them.  Anyways, Walsh and May-Treanor won their match.  YAY!

Tomorrow's Medal Winning Events:

 Men's Canoe Single: No Americans in this one, but Brit David Florence competes.

Women's Synchronized 10m Platform: Again, no Americans, but Brits Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow compete.

Team Eventing Final

Individual Eventing Final: Zara Phillips goes for Gold

Men's Individual Foil: Race Imboden (That's really his name), Alexander Massialas, and Miles Chamley-Watson compete

WOMEN'S TEAM FINAL at 10:30 AM, although we probably won't be able to watch it until Primetime.......AGAIN.

Men and Women's Half Middleweight  (Geez there is a lot of Judo, and so far I have seen none of it broadcast)

Men's Skeet Shooting Final: American Vincent Hancock is leading the field after the prelims. Also, American Frank Thompson competes.

Women's 200m Freestyle: Allison Schmitt goes for another medal in these games along with teenage phenom Missy Franklin who will chase another Gold for herself.

Men's 200m Butterfly: Phelps will try to claim his first Gold in his specialty stroke at 1:49 PM along with teammate Tyler Clary.

Women's 200m Individual Medley: Ariana Kukors and Caitlin Leverenz swim for Gold against reigning champ Stephanie Rice.

And Men's 4x200m Freestyle...it doesn't tell me who is in this one for some reason and I am too tired to go searching...sorry.

  Women's 58-63 kg

Men's 62-69 kg

Here is the final medal count for the day:

China                              9                                   5                                  3            :          17

USA                                5                                   7                                  5            :          17

Japan                             1                                   4                                  6            :          11

Italy                                 2                                   4                                 2            :           8
France                             3                                   1                                 3            :           7

South Korea                   2                                   2                                  2            :          6

Russia                             2                                   0                                  3            :          5
North Korea                    3                                   0                                  1            :          4

Day 4: Part 1

Good Morning!  I actually get to watch things live today as I don't have to go to work.  Here is the current standing medal count since I didn't get to it last night.

China                              7                                   4                                  2            :          13

USA                                3                                   5                                  5            :          13

Italy                                 2                                   4                                  2            :          8

France                            2                                   1                                  2            :           5

South Korea                   2                                   1                                  2            :          5

Japan                              0                                   2                                  3            :          5

Russia                             1                                   0                                  3            :          4

In the News

Kimberley Rhode, who won Gold in the women's skeet shooting yesterday, is the first American athlete to medal in five consecutive Olympics.

The hardest thing about watching the women's gymnastics is watching their parent's in the crowd watching them.  Ali Raisman's parents seemed to be doing her uneven bar routine along with her by squirming around in their seats. Ali Raisman's Parents watch her on the Uneven Bars

Another article from the 'duh' files, and something that I particularly have interest in.  Yahoo has an article about how the sound is mixed and enhanced, or faked, during competition by the placement of hundreds of mics around the area to capture every important sound.  Sounds like a gymnasts feet hitting the beam, the crowd reacting, the sound of an arrow whistling by...so on and so forth.  DUH!  This is how sound for sports is done....for every sport.  Sound engineers are amazing because they give you a real experience of the event through sound.  Think about it.  Watch a sporting event and focus on every sound that you hear being broadcast on your television, and then image what it would be like if you couldn't hear all of those sounds.  If you couldn't hear the swishing of the oars through the water during the rowing events and the sound of the crowd cheering them on from the sidelines.  The sound of a diver springing off of the diving board, the sound of him hitting the water, and the sound of the crowd cheering.  Again, sound engineers are awesome! Ok, rant over.

The Queen's granddaughter and Princess Anne's daughter, Zara Phillips, competes on her horse, High Kingdom, during the dressage portion of the equestrian events.

Kate Middleton Sighting!!! watching Zara.

I am currently watching the women's white water kayaking.  This is intense.  I like kayaking, but I could never hope to survive in the water they are competing in.  They have to swim through gates on the water.  If they touch the gate, they get a 2 second time penalty.  if they miss a gate, they get a 5 second time penalty.  If they flip over in the course, they get a 50 SECOND PENALTY. I guess you really don't want to flip over.  There are green gates that they go through normally, and then red gates that they have to circle and then go through going upstream

Now on to the swimming. Heats for the Women's 200m Individual Medley.  American Leverenz who won the Olympic trials in this event has an awesome breaststroke.

Coming up, US women play the reigning champs Brazil in Volleyball.  Actually, starts right now as of the time I am posting this, so WATCH, if you can.

Tennis is also live

Ok, that's all I've got for now.  Be back later with more results.

Day 3: Part 2

Day 3: Part 2

Today, I learned that the London Olympics are the first event to ban the highly engineered full-body swimsuits that were so popular in Bejing.  I suddenly realized that all the men were only wearing those short suits and I was confused as to why that was, so I looked it up, and now I know.  Oh the Internet, what a wonderful place to find random information.

Looks a little different, huh? No more Speedo LZR suits.   Anyways, on to the actual events.

Today's Medal Winning Sports:

Women's 3m Synchronized Springboard:  This is really fun to watch, although it is kind of weird that diving in unison is an Olympic sport.  I like it! The US women Kelsey Bryant and Abby Johnston won the Silver!  Apparently, they both collect rubber ducks...random fact of the day. They did crazy dives where they jump off of the board and do two somersaults and then a full twist before hitting the water.  ACK!  That looks scary and I am always afraid that they are going to hit their heads on the board as they go by.

The Chinese pair Zi He and Minxia Wu won the Gold as expected and the Canadian pair Jennifer Abel and Emilie Heymans won the Bronze.  This was Heymans fourth medal in four consecutive Olympics, the first time that has ever been done by a Canadian athlete.

***Women's 100-meter Butterfly: American Dana Vollmer won GOLD with a new World Record time of 55.98!! First woman ever to finish under 56 seconds in the 100-meter fly.  China's Ying Lu got the Silver and Alicia Coutts of Australia won the Bronze.  Claire Donahue from the US finished 7th.  The butterfly always looks really awkward under the water. They just look like they are flopping into the water.  I can't do it.

Men's 100-meter Breaststroke: Cameron van der Burgh of South Africa won the Gold, Christian Sprenger of Australia got the Silver, and the United States' own Brendan Hansen won the Bronze medal.  He beat his eight year rival Kitajima who came 5th.

Women's 400-meter Freestyle: Yay! Another medal for the US, and one for Britain.  Frenchwoman Camille Muffat got the Gold with an Olympic Record.  American Allison Schmidt won the Silver and Britain's own Rebecca Adlington won the Bronze. Schmidt could not have been more excited in her post-race interview and I could not be more happy for her.

Men's 4x100-meter Freestyle: The US lost this race in the final 25 meters to the French team and Lochte and Phelps combined couldn't get it done.

Women's Team Final: China takes the Gold, Korea takes the Silver, and Japan takes the Bronze.

Men's Sabre Individual:  Aron Szilagyi of Hungary trounced his opponent Diego Occhiuzzi of Italy to take the Gold.  In the Bronze medal match, Nikolay Kovalev of Russia came out on top to take the medal.

Women's Road Race: Marianne Vos of the Netherlands won the Gold, Elizabeth Armitstead of Great Britain took the Silver, and Olga Zabelinskaya of Russia won the Bronze.  I watched a little bit of this race before I went to work this morning, but apparently they don't think it is worthy of being covered in the Primetime coverage, so I didn't get to see what happened.  Boo NBC!

Women's Half Lightweight: Kum Ae An of North Korea won the Gold medal, Yanet Bermoy Acosta of Cuba won the Silver, and Priscilla Gneto won her Bronze medal match to take the medal.

Men's Half Lightweight: Hungary's Miklos Ungvari won the Gold medal in the final match over Georgia's Lasha Shavdatuashvili who got the Silver. Jun-Ho Cho of Korea won the Bronze.

Women's 10M Air Pistol: China's Wenjun Guo won the Gold, Celine Goberville of France won the Silver, and Olena Kostevych of Ukraine won the Bronze.

Women's Skeet: Kimberley Rhode of the US won the Gold medal with an almost perfect 99 targets hit out of 100.  After the competition, Rhode said that she now had something to work on for next time.  Ning Wei of China got the Silver, and Danka Bartekova of Slovakia took home the Bronze.

 Women's 48-53 kg: Kazakhstan picked up their second gold of these Olympics with Zulfiya Chinshanlo taking the ladies Gold in this event with two lifts, the second of which weighed 288 lbs. Ummm....that's like more than twice as much as I weigh.  That's crazy. Taiwan's Shu-Ching Hsu won the Silver and Moldova's Cristina Iovu got the Bronze.

In Other News:

Women's Gymnastics:  Woo! I know its kind of a terrible sport in many ways because these poor young girls have so much riding on their shoulders and have been doing nothing but gymnastics for their whole lives, but I love watching it!  Today the women completed their qualification round.  Mckayla Muroney is insane on the vault.  She goes so high in the air...its Crazy!  The Americans in general just crushed the vault section of the qualifier and nobody else in the world can touch them on this event.  Jordan Wieber, the US All-Around Champion, failed to qualify as one of the two athletes to compete in the All-Around in these Games and is devastated.  Her mom had to send her a virtual hug over Twitter because she was not able to get down to the floor to give her a real hug.  Aww...sad, but also, geez people. You can't let the girl's mom down to give her a hug.  To be fair, she probably just wanted to be left alone.  Gabby Douglass and Abby Raisman will compete for the Individual All-Around medals.  

It seems pretty harsh that Wieber does not get to compete. She had the 4th best score after the qualifiers in the whole field of gymnasts and yet because each country is only allowed to have two athletes compete in the All-Around, she is shut out of the competition.  That seems really unfair., but I guess that's just my opinion.  Well...mine and Bela Karolyi's.

Sharapova sails through her round against Shahar Peer.  Number 2 Radwanska lost to Julia Goerges of Germany. Wozniacki won her round as did Kvitova, Li Na, Serena Williams, Zvonareva, and Ivanovic.  Number 5 Sam Stosur lost her first round.

Now for the men.  Tsonga, Djokovic, Ferrer, del Potro, Federer, Isner, and Tipsarevic won their rounds.  Hometown hero Murray also made it through his first round vs. Wawrinka.  Tomas Berdych lost his first round match.

Tomorrow's Medal Events:

Men's Synchronized 10m Platform: USA men Nicholas Mccrory and David Boudia compete.

Women's Individual Epee: American's Maya Lawrence and Courtney Hurley compete

MEN'S TEAM FINAL:  The American men have a good chance to win gold here and watching them do crazy strong things is awesome.  You should watch.

Women's and Men's Lightweight Finals

Men's 10m Air Rifle Final

Men's 200m Freestyle Final: Ryan Lochte competes for Gold

Women's 100m Backstroke: American darling 17 year-old Missy Franklin swims for Gold

Men's 100m Backstroke: Matthew Grevers and Nick Thoman compete.

Women's 100m Breaststroke: Rebecca Soni and Breeja Larson swim as well as Aussie darling Leisel Jones.

Medal Count is.........................zzzzzzzzzzzzz........... sorry will update tomorrow.  Time to snooze.